Review of Zadie Smith's Novel 'On Beauty'

Within Tennessee Williams's story about love and abuse within marriage and challenging familial ties, there lie three very different characters that all see the world in vastly different ways. These members of a family that operate completely outside of our generation’s norms, are constantly unsure of themselves and their station within the binary not only of their familial unit, but within the gender binary that is established for them to follow. Throughout the story of the strange family, each character goes through a different arch that changes them irrevocably whether it is able to be perceived or not by those around them. The only male, Stanley is initially the macho force in the home who controls everything without question. He has

There is a fine distinction in the fabric of DNA that separates men and women- one has the opportunity to give life and one does not. Although beneath skin and flesh is the foundation of a body, the bones. What every human being also shares with each other is the ability to cast emotions. However throughout history, men have been brought up to be seen as if they have little to no feelings at all and women are to be too emotional. Everyone has the potential to feel pain at some point in their lives. Objectification is the central concept dear to feminist thinkers. Many think that objectification is something that remains in history, but it continues to be a problem in modern society. F. Scott Fitzgerald applies this to the characters in his book: The Great Gatsby. The underlying theme of the podcast: Relationship Radio dealt with the objectification of human beings. Aidan Buckner, Olivia Lujan, and Penelope Tucker’s three podcasts: You Can Buy Me Love, Daisy, Money and Usage, and Puppy Love tie the notion of objectification through the relationships: Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, George and Myrtle Wilson, and Tom and Myrtle Wilson through the book The Great Gatsby.

In Zadie Smith’s The Girl with Bangs, we follow an unnamed female narrator as she chronicles her whirlwind relationship with the titular Charlotte Greaves. Though we do not get a glimpse into Charlotte’s point of view, Smith makes it obvious what type of girl Charlotte is, not only in the way she treats the narrator, but how she treats everyone around her. Their torrid affair begins shortly after Charlotte’s boyfriend, Maurice, has been called away for a dream job in Thailand. He left her with a flimsy promise asked of Charlotte to ‘wait for him’. This proves an impossibility for the mercurial Charlotte and her insatiable lover, who would let Charlotte get away with murder for one more touch of her bangs. This relationship does not last for

When the word “beauty” is used, most people think of a female with a fit body shape, hairless body and light skin color which is wrong because of all these types of attitudes impact on a woman’s life. In “Through the Mirror of Beauty Culture”, Rice argues that we should rethink the concept of beauty and rely on “beauty myth”. The main focus is to explore different methods of how the society and cultural visualizing have shaped women’s appearance. As you may recall, the body plays a major role in a woman's life because it affects her self-esteem, psychological health and character. The author describes a variety of different types of “body projects” or “self-making projects” which people with body dissatisfaction practice to protect themselves

There is a cliché quote that people say, “Beauty is in the eye of beholder.” But in the essay “The Ugly Truth About Beauty” (1998) Dave Barry argues about how women who spend countless hours on their so called “beauty” whereas men seem not to care. Barry uses juxtaposition and exaggeration to poke fun at men and women behavior and shed light on the harm that the beauty industry is doing. When Barry argues his point of his essay he addresses both genders, but more specifically teenage to middle age men and women, but he writes about it in a humorous and light-hearted manner.

Explanation: Sontag discusses the endless battle women face with beauty. By showing that the term beauty “has accumulated certain demeaning overtones” (Sontag 238), she shows the negative connotation beauty has now received and explains

The Ugly Truth About Beauty by Dave Barry is a humorous essay, which uses techniques like satire including exaggeration, that gives the reader a funny yet accurate portrayal of women and their beauty standards compared to standards set for men. Barry uses satire, humor to criticize the faults of others, to connect with his audience. Although Barry loves to make funny points throughout his essay he constantly weaves in serious facts and examples of this issue. Barry will make a valid point then immediately follow it up with exaggeration. His use of satire in the essay makes the reading light and enjoyable while showing the reader the double standards of beauty.

“Beauty” by Tony Hoagland was written in 1998. In this poem, Hoagland expresses his feelings on how women care too much about physical appearances. Throughout his poem he tells the story through the eyes of a brother of a girl who learns to love herself for who she is. Hoagland’s poem stresses the importance that beauty goes deeper than the surface. Throughout his poem, Tony Hoagland uses many literary devices to perfect his poem. These devices include the message, tone, imagery, figures of speech, and personification.

The concept of beauty is shown to be highly valued in the story and the society that the story is set in. For example, Beauty chooses to marry the third and final man because he is a handsome scholar. Beauty is tricked into being pushed down a well because of beauty. “’Sister, come and look into the well. We will see which of us is the more beautiful’” (Lin Lan 129). They do not compare who is most skillful or who is the most intelligent; they value beauty so much that the concept is the only thing they decide to be compared on. The scholar, Beauty’s husband, is shown to also cherish beauty. He is horrified to see Pock Face instead of his beautiful wife and reacts very dramatically. “’Goodness! How changed you are! Surely you are not Beauty. My wife was never such a monster. Good Heavens!’” (Lin Lan 129). These examples serve as indicators of how much the characters, and therefore the story, are so intensely focused on the concept of physical

People who live in a discriminative society constantly face the dangers of being placed in a certain category because of who they are. The trend of stereotypes is reflected among different characters in literature, such as Peter Houghton from Nineteen Minutes and Janie Crawford from Their Eyes Were Watching God. Peter and Janie both have to constantly face tough challenges as they are labeled by society’s expectations. From Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie is defined as being the “woman” in the relationship from her ex-husbands, Logan Killicks and Joe Starks. Joe and Logan’s behavior towards Janie shows the struggle and disrespect women receive from men and society.

What dictates the social roles, the individual responsibility everyone has in society, and stereotypes, an overgeneralized and oversimplified belief of a particular person or group, in America’s 21st century society? Can rationale and critical thinking be held accountable for the establishment of ethical beliefs involving people and their sex, gender related value systems? The following readings covered in this essay are both found within the textbook, Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers; the Introduction: Popular Signs written by coauthors Sonia Maasik, a writing programs lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Jack Solomon, an English Professor at California State University, and located within the second chapter of the textbook, the brief article, Dove’s “Real Beauty” backlash, written by Jennifer L. Pozner, the executive director of Women In Media & News (“Sonia Maasik”)(“Jack Solomon”)(194). Mass entertainment culture, the popular interests of the majority broadcasted in the media, can be attributed for constituting and sustaining the potentially hindering culture myths, a fictitious but widely accepted belief of a certain culture, regarding all genders. These cultural myths are not exclusive to men and women as they also involve transgender individuals and others who identify as another gender not classified under ‘cisgender.’ An extensive analysis of mass entertainment culture and

This essay is for women who believe their thighs are too big, their breasts are too small, their hair is boring, their skin is flawed, their body is shaped funny, or their clothes are outdated. This month's column is for women who believe their life would improve if they could lose 15 pounds; if they could afford contact lenses, that new perfume or anti-cellulite concoction; if they got a nose job, a face lift, a tummy tuck, etc. This month's column is for women who feel shame or unhappiness when they ponder some part (or all) of their body. In other words, this month's column is for 99.9% of the women reading it!

Every day, a person will see celebrities on television, talk to peers in school or at work, or have encounters with strangers on the street, and automatically make assumptions on what their life must be like. Many times, they envision the other person’s life to be something bigger and better than their own life and that vision causes them to become jealous. That jealousy, in effect, can consume them and cause them become unhappy with the assets and characteristics that they have. People can become so discontented with their lives that they would be willing to give up everything they have to start over or have a different life with different problems. The way that the main characters in Jane Martin’s “Beauty” describe their lives as

The goal of this paper is to prove why the homosexual couple is more normal than the heterosexual couple and why the definition of beauty is not accurate throughout the plot of American Beauty by using the technique of gender criticism. My first step to achieving this goal will be providing evidence about the main masculine and feminine roles and how they are reversed. Afterwards, I will compare and contrast the relationship of the homosexual couple with that of the heterosexual couple. In addition, I will describe how the movie depicts society’s definition of beauty by allowing the readers to sympathize with teenagers, Jane Burnham and Angela Hayes.

"Does this make me look fat?” Everyone at one time or another has experienced this iconic question in some way. Your best friend may have asked it, as she was getting ready for a date or maybe you muttered these words to yourself as you stared disapprovingly into a mirror; either way, this six-word question alludes to a standard of beauty that everyone strives to meet. A standard of beauty that is almost impossible to meet. The definition of beauty has evolved greatly over the years and it differs from culture to culture. Today, western culture idolizes the woman who is “thin, large breasted, and white (tanned, but not too brown)” (WVFV, pg. 220). This woman is one that millions of women strive to look like in